St Mary's Catholic School Boyup Brook

Hello Friends & Families,

What a wonderful and quick Term 2 we have had. The P&F Committee would like to thank all families for helping with our fundraising efforts, it truly is appreciated. Because of this we are able to fund the activities expenses for all students at the upcoming Kodja Place School Excursion in Term 3.

Our next P&F Meeting will be Monday 28th July. Time to be confirmed.

This term, our Year 1/2 class at St Mary's enjoyed three very special visits to the Citizens Lodge.

Our first visit linked to our History unit, where students are learning about how places and lives change over time. The children interviewed residents and gathered oral histories, listening to stories from the past and gaining a deeper understanding of how things have changed over the years.

The second visit was all about fun and connection, with students and residents enjoying classic board games together. The room was full of laughter, chatter and a healthy bit of competition!

We will finish the term with a relaxing afternoon tea and a shared drawing session. It will be a wonderful way to celebrate our new friendships.

These visits have been incredibly valuable for both groups. The students gained confidence, communication skills. and a strong sense of community.  The residents have expressed how much they enjoyed the lively conversations and youthful energy.

We’re looking forward to continuing our visits next term and further growing these beautiful intergenerational relationships.

In the year 3/4 class we have had a strong focus on Eucharist and as a class have worked together to help prepare Selina, Ellie and Chloe as they excitedly receive their Sacrament of First Eucharist this Sunday. As part of the preparation the three girls and their parents attended a workshop after school, where they took time to give thanks and gather their thoughts about their upcoming Sacrament and had an opportunity to practice receiving Eucharist with non-consecrated hosts. In class we have been extending our understanding on the Eucharist that we receive in Church today was formed from the Last Supper or Passover meal that Jesus shared with his disciples before his crucifixion. On Wednesday we gathered together as a class and we took bread, blessed the bread, broke the bread, shared it between us and ate together just like Jesus did with his disciples. This was a special way for the class to come together and to share thoughts and blessings with their classmates before Sunday. The occasion was extra special thanks to Mrs Neild and Mrs Elks who baked bread at home to share with the class and Mrs Cailes for bringing in the beautiful flowers to decorate the table. 

Year 3/4 students have been working on writing a narrative all term and have completed their stories, using book creator app have turned their amazing stories into a book that has been printed. The class will get an opportunity to share their book with the year 1/2 class next week, before they turn their writing focus to information reports in preparation for public speaking in term three. 

Math lessons have seen the students creating 2D polygons and then rotating and turning those shapes to make new shapes or tessellations. They have explored splitting polygons to make different polygons and how to use symmetry to create new shapes. 

It has been a busy end of the term, and everyone is looking forward to a much-needed break. 

Enjoy your holidays.

Mrs Melanie Elks 

The Sacrament of Eucharist has been the focus of Religion lessons for the second half of the term. We have enjoyed working in groups to role play the Gospel story of the Miracle of the Seven Loaves. Then we reviewed the practices of the Early Church in the Acts of the Apostles and found links between the readings and the Eucharist as we know it today. The Liturgy of the Word has been explored in detail and the class has carried out various activities to recall each element and its purpose during the Mass. 

The Year 5/6 class have completed their final narrative assessment, and it has been very exciting to see the progress that all students have made throughout the term. In small writing groups students have improved their writing skills by using adjectives to help describe the characters, setting and events, explored the different types of conflicts that can be in a text and experimented with different genres of narrative. Before the end of the term, the class will start to focus on information report writing in readiness for term three. During reading lessons, the class was thoroughly entertained by the novel Barking Mad by Tom E Moffatt. As we have shared each chapter, we have expanded our vocabulary, learnt some idioms, answered comprehension questions and made predictions. 

History lessons have focused on migration to Australia in the 1800s. The class have learnt about push and pull factors of migration and how examples of these led to people moving to Australia.  Research has been carried out to find out about different groups who came to Australia, their experiences and contributions to the development of the nation. Currently we are examining significant events in History and considering how events can have more importance for some people than others. There have been many rich discussions that have showcased the higher order thinking skills of the students which is so exciting to see.